Frequently Asked Questions

Why spend time, energy and money on family farms, when Brazil's strength is in agribusiness?

Because both are of fundamental importance to Brazil. Everyone knows the importance of agribusiness, but many people still do not know that family farming is responsible for 70% of the food that reaches Brazilians’ tables. There are 4.3 million productive family units (equivalent to 84% of all the farms in the country), and they employ no less than 74% of the entire rural workforce according to the Ministry of Agrarian Development (MDA).

Why is there so much talk that the Lula government has revolutionized the sector if the National Program for Strengthening Family Agriculture (Pronaf) has existed since 1996?

It existed, but it was too bureaucratic, the volume was too small and limited to a small group of beneficiaries, almost all of whom were located in the South. Only 20% of Brazilian farmers had access to the old Pronaf. Today, it is represented in 5,300 municipalities. The volume of credit available for the 2002-2003 season, before Lula’s election to the Presidency was only R$ 2.2 billion; it rose year-on-year with Lula and Dilma and keeps growing, with the reaching a record R$ 18.5 billion for the 2012-2013 crop year — an increase of 800%. For the 2013-2014 season R$ 21 billion is budgeted.

What good is so much credit for production, if family farmers do not have anyone to sell it to?

On the contrary, the farmers have a large consumer market – Brazilian consumers. It is worth remembering that 70% of the food that comes our tables is produced by family farmers. And the Lula and Dilma governments took action to the create the means to facilitate the flow of production. With the Food Acquisition Program (PAA), for example, the Federal Government purchases much of the production from family farmers, agrarian reform settlement producers and quilombolas. Since the creation of the program in 2003, 4 million tons of food were acquired. In ten years, the PAA benefited 188,000 small farmers. It also benefited 92 million low-income Brazilians, who received donations of food purchased by the Program.

How can they sell their products, if the family production units are usually located in places that are difficult to get to?

Access is becoming less difficult. The Federal Government is delivering trucks, backhoes and graders to 5,061 Brazilian municipalities of up to 50,000 inhabitants. The vehicles allow city governments to recuperate and maintain — at low cost — the rural roads that are used to transport family farm production.

Why didn’t Agrarian Reform, one of the PT’s main platforms, advance after the party won the presidency?

But of course it advanced - and a great deal! Under the Lula and Dilma governments, about 690,000 families have received titles to their lands, equivalent to 53.5% of total of those who have been the beneficiaries in the entire history of land reform in Brazil. Between 2003 and 2013, no fewer than 3,902 settlements were established in every state in the federation, adding more than 50 million hectares (equal to the territories of the states of Ceará and Mato Grosso do Sul combined).

Another very important thing: Lula and Dilma provided strong support for the settlements. In the past, families were left on their own, without having the minimum conditions necessary to produce. Under PT governments, they won the right to credit, technical assistance, roads, construction and renovation of their houses, water, electricity, access to high quality seed and guaranteed sale of production (via Food Purchase Program and National School Feeding Program), among other benefits.

How can settlers and farmers, in general, improve their production if they are still using outdated techniques?

This was true under previous governments, when Brazil had a technical assistance blackout. With Lula and Dilma, in just a decade, the annual volume of investment increased from R$ 46 million to R$ 830 million. Furthermore, in 2013, the Dilma government created the National Technical Assistance and Rural Extension Agency (Anater), to act together with the Brazilian Agricultural Research Company, Embrapa, bring even more and better technical support to the agricultural sector. Family farms were the priority.